Dark God’s Gift: A Tangled Web

By K. Ceres Wright

     Thia Wayan stared at the people eating dumplings at eight o’clock in the morning. Yes, she was in China, and when in Rome, yadda yadda. But still… Dumplings?

     Others ate sweet potatoes, sticky rice, and noodles and meat, washing it down with hot soy milk, all while hoofing it to work. She shook her head in befuddlement, thankful she didn’t eat breakfast and had found a Starbucks. Black coffee, two sugars, would hold her until lunch.

     She had changed her schedule at home several days before traveling to China so jet lag wouldn’t be an issue during her mission. On her first day in Guangzhou, she needed to acclimate to the smells and sounds of the city, to program her reptilian brain—the oldest layer of the human brain that controlled basic functions—to remember normal patterns in order to instantly recognize when something out of the ordinary happened.

     Her reptilian brain saved her life on numerous occasions and she wasn’t about to neglect it. She used to think that in large cities, with millions of people and the hustle and bustle of daily life, there would be no patterns to discern. But she’d been wrong. People were largely creatures of habit, especially in big cities. It was as if they were imposing order on the chaos around them. Sit in one place long enough and one would see the same people traveling the same road to work or school, stop at the same stores and restaurants, and hang with the same people.

     Once, when living in Brooklyn, working undercover with the Asian gangs, the man living next door to her, Mr. Hernandez, would always fall asleep with the television playing loudly, always tuned to the news. One night, his apartment remained silent, which alerted something in the back of her mind. Instead of enjoying the peace and quiet, Thia grabbed her lason and peered into Mr. Hernandez’s apartment from the fire escape.

     From between a crack in the curtain and with her night vision dialed up, the profiles of five men armed with Lason Rifles pointed at her kitchen wall shone in the dark. They wore the tattoos of the Four Brothers gang. Just as they opened fire on her apartment, she slipped down the fire escape and onto the street.

     After a hasty drive to the Dragonfish Gang Leader’s home, Thia demanded to know why (given she was about to complete a $10 million Pakz deal with them the next day) members of the Four Brothers gang would be trying to kill her? Angry, she told him the Dragonfish had a traitor in their midst.

     Dragonfish Head, Big Brother Yang, took 25 of his most trusted men and paid a visit to the Four Brothers, many of whom were never seen again. Dran Secobar, Thia’s boss at Homeland Intelligence, let the pakz deal go through so they could track the money and see what other cookie jars the Triads’ hands were into to help build Thia’s credibility in the murky underworld. That had been a year ago.

     Because she was new in China only covered by a recommendation from Big Brother Yang, she had a meeting with a low-ranking soldier, Little Brother Hsu of the Red Triangle gang. Thia rode alone in the back of a limousine to her destination: a burger joint in a small strip mall ten minutes away from her hotel.

     After alighting from the car, she noted only a few people milled about, some finishing their soy milk before going into work. Having cogged a copy of her retinal pattern the day before, she passed easily through the first set of glass doors to the restaurant, but was greeted by five Triad members holding weapons just outside the second set of doors. Thia put up her hands and walked toward the DNA scanner as one of the men indicated with a wave of his lason.

     She stuck her hand inside a small white box, hoping the flesh-tone gloved layers would give up the false DNA. A moist spongy material swiped her palm, and a green light on top of the box lit up. One man opened the door while another waved her through. She stepped into a small restaurant that had old-fashioned plastic booths built back to back, lining paneled walls. She had stepped back in time to the 1970s, she thought. True, retro was back in style, but the restaurant did not look retro. It looked authentic. The men followed her inside and took up positions among the empty booths.

     A short stout man dressed in a dark blue suit approached her, extending a hand. She shook it, smiling. Thia was going by the name of Maxine Lai, widow of a Chinese businessman in Lagos, whose side activities included drug smuggling, counterfeiting, and gambling.

“Maxine Lai. Pleased to meet you.”

“Little Brother Liang Hsu. Please sit.”

     He gestured toward an empty seat. Thia slid inside the booth and immediately wished for the self-molding foam of modern-day furniture. She was cogged into a global server, but she tapped her personal display into the background. Every face and voice pattern had been scanned, cataloged then uploaded to the Foreign and Homeland Intelligence servers.

“How was your trip?” asked Liang.

     “Uneventful. The best kind.” She hated cultures that didn’t get right down to business, which was most non-Western ones. Now she would have to endure appetizers, tea, and small talk.

“Tea?”

“Please,” Thia replied.

     The pleasantries and small talk lasted for the better part of an hour and Thia made sure to remain calm, modest, and deliberate. As the gangs gained in numbers, money, and influence they behaved more like businessmen rather than criminals. In recent decades, initiation rites had become conflated, seemingly like the ones during the 1930s. In the early 2000s, rites had become not much more than someone swearing to the 36 oaths. Now times were swinging back to the crossed swords, white suits, and elaborate celebratory feasts.

     In order to gain face, Thia extended an invitation to Hsu and his Tang Kou, or Gang Division, to attend a banquet. She knew no business would be discussed at this gathering, but the day following the banquet during a small meeting. Or at least she hoped. Thia arranged the banquet to take place at a private hall, rather than her hotel, to ensure privacy for the guests.

     Liang graciously accepted, then stood up. Thia followed suit. The two exchanged slight bows and then Thia filed out followed by the weapon-wielding men. They unlocked both sets of doors and escorted her to the waiting limo.

****

     Thia’s boss, Dran Secobar, nodded intermittently as she apprised him of the meeting with Liang Hsu. Dran’s image hovered in her personal display, visible only to her. He had thick brown hair and deep-set eyes that were too close together.

“Good. Do you think he suspected anything?” Dran said.

     “Hard to say. He had a poker face like Quattrocellini marble. But my scanner detected no extreme spikes in hormone output, blood pressure, or heart rate. As many as there are of the gangs, I think they’ve gotten comfortable. Besides, it’s not our job to stop the gangs. It’s our job to follow the money.”

“Much as we like to think it leads straight to the Red Army, we need proof,” Dran said.

“People’s Liberation Army,” Thia corrected.

“Same difference.”

“Any idea why the Army would be smuggling pakz through the Triads? Fund a pet project?”

“That’s the prevailing wisdom, but we have no idea what the project is. That’s why we have you.” Dran grinned.

     Thia rolled her eyes. “I already have to sit through a banquet dinner like an uptight nun, then wait until the next day just for a meeting.”

“Oh, have a little fun. They’re not real businessmen. You know the drill. Get ‘em drunk, get ‘em talking. Easy.”

“Easy for you. You’re not sitting in a room full of gang members.” She yawned and stretched. “I’ll check in tomorrow after the banquet.”

“All right. Oh, we got intel on some deals going down with the Gang of Eight. I’ll send it to you,” Dran said. “Good luck.” He signed off.

     Thia peeled off her clothes, then settled in for a long day of studying.

****

To be continued....    Go to Part 2

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